


One More Night

by peachys, Thunar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-08 18:13:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13463772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachys/pseuds/peachys, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunar/pseuds/Thunar
Summary: He was scared for it, scared of the unknown, scared of Otabek leaving, scared of all the things that will go unsaid when he does.Yuri discovers things about Otabek.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A [commission](https://misoyoongi.tumblr.com/post/166154977751/writing-commissions) I've been working on. hope you guys like it!!

_ The day was meant to be a good one. That’s what she tells herself every morning when her eyes open and she takes in the gold dusted sunlight filtering in through her windows, the quiet that lingers in the mornings. She kicks the covers off, gets up, gets dressed, brushes her hair with precise strokes and admires herself in the mirror. It’s a routine she knows well and one she has become accustomed to over the years.  _

 

_ Except that day something throws it off entirely. It feels like turbulence on a plane, unprecedented but wholly unavoidable. It starts with breakfast- the carton of eggs is empty. She stares at this empty corner in her fridge for what feels like an overwhelming amount of time, not quite sure what to do with this sudden realization but knowing it must be something like an Omen. She shakes off the feeling, throws the empty carton in the trash and abandons breakfast altogether, deciding instead to get the mail first.  _

 

_ She squints once she gets outside. It’s bright and on her normal lawn outside of her normal house in her quiet and normal neighborhood the grass is green as emeralds and it is nothing short of a good, normal day. Or it’s supposed to be, anyway.  _

 

_ The lack of eggs in her house has completely thrown her off. Did she forget to go to the grocery store? Did they really eat all of them, all two dozen eggs, in such a short amount of time? Perhaps. But  then again when was the last time she had gone to the store? Maybe it had been longer than she thought. That’s not the only thing, nor the biggest one, though. It did, however set off a motion of events that would completely devastate her, crumble her into ruin. The bomb is in the envelope.  _

 

_ It’s unmarked and neatly sealed. There’s no return address, no name, no stamp. It’s like it had just neatly appeared there in her mailbox between her coupons and the bills but it was obvious that it did not belong, that it was out of place. Inside, a card with  _ **_Congratulations!_ ** _ Written on the front. She frowns at this because her birthday had already passed and there were no holidays coming up to warrant a card like that one. It could have been placed in the wrong mailbox, that was always a possibility but when the first pictures fall out from between it she knows it wasn’t. That sort of thing was meant just for her to see, for her to endure on her own.  _

 

_ She bends down to pick them up off the floor carefully with the very tips of her fingers, as if they are dirty. She can see the soft roundness of her son’s face as a child, the dark eyes and then more. Something hot and tight knots itself at the base of her throat. She thinks, “Is that-?” but never gets to finish the thought before she’s rushing off to the sink, emptying what little had remained in her stomach from the dinner she’d had the night before. There’s not much there so she ends up gagging on the panic for the most part.  _

 

_ Once she has been emptied out and her hands have stopped shaking sufficiently she reaches for the phone and dials for help, knowing the police would respond to her pleas in perhaps ten minutes tops. On the table the inside of the card reads  _ **_See You Soon!_ **

 

Yuri has dreamt, before, of going up to Otabek and saying  _ I know you know; I know you know what I know _ . Yuri has dreamt of resolving the tension, of the changes that could come with it like seasons, slow but so beautiful. Yuri has dreamt of all the things he  _ does _ know and all the things he doesn’t and how he keeps them all to himself anyway. 

 

There are those few touches that linger. Yuri familiarizes himself with these, builds a home out of their meanings and settles into their warmth. Sometimes he can’t tell if it’s him or Otabek that’s the coward. Perhaps it’s both of them but there’s something about the change, something about leaving the title of friendship and stepping off into the unknown of  _ something else  _ that frightens Yuri like nothing else ever could but they’re there, almost, toes hanging off the edge but not falling quite yet. They just need to take the final leap but that just might be harder than it seems. They’re old enough but acting like teenagers still, not daring to bring up the subject and skidding around it in the rare occasions that they do.

 

So, Yuri takes what he can get. He keeps the hugs that last too long and the fingers that comb through his hair and the fact that Otabek lets him rest his head on his lap without complaint whether they’re watching a movie or not. He keeps the late night phone calls and skype sessions when they can’t be together and the dinners on nights that aren’t supposed to be special but end up being so by the end anyway. He keeps the bed sharing and the unintentional cuddling- unintentional on Otabek’s part, he’s sure. It’s just that Otabek is like an Octopus when he sleeps and Yuri takes advantage of that, no matter how wrong he tells himself it is. He sleeps like a baby during those nights.

 

It’s the middle of the skating season and Otabek’s hand rests on the curve of Yuri’s spine, warmth radiating from the point of contact and outward, seeping in through the expensive material of Yuri’s suit and all throughout to the very tips of his fingers and toes. The touch is inconspicuous enough, not meant to be much but still Yuri lets himself lean back into it and relishes in the feeling of Otabek’s rough palm over his clothes. 

 

They’d been there for a while, well into the night already and Yuri is still nursing the same flute of champagne he’d gotten from a disgruntled waiter when they’d first arrived. He’s not tired but his legs are sore and aching. Around his neck hangs a silver medal; around Otabek’s is gold. The loss had not completely thrown Yuri for as much of a loop as he would have thought just as long as it’s Otabek that he’s standing next to on the pedestal. In fact, Yuri thinks Otabek very well deserves this win and even then he’s starting to think second place isn’t all that bad. 

 

He doesn’t know the name of the man they’re talking to and had been for a while now. Yuri doesn’t know his name and he doesn’t care what his job is or how he’d spent his youth on the ice before a broken femur had promptly and completely kicked him out of the only home he had ever known. He doesn’t care about the man’s wife or his kids or his house with the white picket fence and the dog. Yuri doesn’t care about any of it and he doesn’t pretend to, either. His boredom is clear as day on his face but Otabek persists, ever the polite one. He asks questions, adds his own commentary and Yuri, for the life of him, can’t seem to pull himself away from that hand on his back, no matter how close he is to yelling at the man to shut up.

 

There is a lot of laughter and revelry going on in the room around him. Across the room he can see Viktor and Katsuki laughing about something, looking as intimate as ever with their heads tipped towards each other, foreheads almost bumping in their overwhelming need to be as close as was socially acceptable. There are wide smiles on their faces that they probably don’t even notice are there. Mila is swaying softly along to the song, hips off beat but a small, hazy smile on her red-cheeked face. She’s very obviously drunk and Sara is nowhere to be seen. Yuri turns his head a little further, spots JJ, the third place winner with his bronze medal still around his neck, and then Chris, holding hands with a man Yuri has never seen before but looking madly and helplessly infatuated either way. 

 

Yuri is so busy looking at all the other skaters that he barely notices the new man that has approached them, very obviously an employee if his dress is anything to go by. He taps Otabek on the shoulder and over the noise says, “may I please speak to you in private?” Yuri hears that part, but not what Otabek says. He turns, sees Otabek’s lips move and form words, sees the frown that has formed there but whatever it may have been is lost. 

 

The man says, “It’s urgent,” and it certainly feels like it is at that moment.

 

Yuri feels something go missing when Otabek lets go of him. He hadn’t been particularly chilly before, what with all those bodies packed into that room but without Otabek’s presence and the hand on his back Yuri feels like he’s going to freeze to death, like the most fundamental part of himself has gone and taken all his warmth with it. He is left alone with his warm champagne and the man who, with Otabek gone, no longer seems to have anything to talk about and smiles politely at Yuri before disappearing into the crowd. Yuri doesn’t see him again for the night but finds himself glad that the man hadn’t instead decided to turn his attentions on him and continued a conversation he hadn’t been keeping up with in the first place. 

 

Now, so suddenly alone, Yuri’s gaze travels across the room to where Otabek is, standing by the doorway under a protective curtain of darkness talking to the man that had interrupted them. It looks serious and so Yuri doesn’t even consider going over there. He sees Otabek frown before a look of pure untapped terror comes over him, almost wracking his body with the force of it. Its suddenness startles Yuri, too. The man continues speaking, forming thoughts that Yuri doesn’t understand with his hands and looking both concerned and sympathetic. 

 

When the conversation finishes Otabek nods gravely and his lips form something that even from across the room Yuri can make out as a  _ thank you _ . Otabek comes back to him in slow, faltering steps but his face has completely shifted over, looking dark and grave unlike the relaxed ease of before. Yuri meets him somewhere in the middle, reaches for him but stops with his arm stretched out halfway. The fear still lingers there like a bad omen, like a heavy thunder cloud. Otabek won’t meet his eyes. 

 

“Are you alright?” He asks and then, “that looked serious,” because he can’t think of anything else to say. Otabek quietly, so quietly that Yuri can barely hear him over the music, mutters that he’s fine even though it’s obvious that he’s very much not. 

 

There is no going back to normal after that and it isn’t long before Otabek excuses himself and leaves Yuri behind, alone in that room so full of people without an explanation to tide him over. He finds a small sort of comfort in Viktor and the drinks and the conversations that don’t matter. His thoughts, however, stay with Otabek.

 

He sees him again later that night completely by accident. Exhausted, Yuri has finally given in and given up on socializing for the night and quietly excuses himself from the group that will barely notice his absence once he’s gone . In the lobby his ears start to ring, not at all used to the silence after so many hours at the party. In the elevator, he sees Otabek again. 

 

It’s more awkward than he could have expected. Otabek presses himself against the corner, as far away from Yuri as was possible as if just his mere presence was suffocating him and he needed space to breathe. As if he needed to be as far away from Yuri as was possible. 

 

Yuri turns to him and in what could maybe be considered a moment of desperation and worry he asks, “do you want to do something?”  _ Something _ being going up to his room and maybe watching a movie, maybe curling up together and falling asleep there, maybe something other than  _ this _ , whatever it is because Yuri still doesn’t understand exactly what is going on but he knows that he doesn’t like it. 

 

“No thanks,” Otabek tells him quickly, before Yuri can even get all of the words out of his mouth. The elevator dings on his floor and Otabek steps out quickly, trying to avoid Yuri at all costs. Yuri follows after him, a deep frown on his face. 

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

 

Otabek stops outside of his room, hand halfway into his pocket to look for the key. “What are you talking about?”

 

“It’s like you’ve seen a ghost or something. Can you at least look at me?”

 

Otabek does, then. He turns and looks at Yuri, back pressed against the still locked door. His eyes are hazy, lips set in a firm line. He looks nothing short of miserable. 

 

“What happened back there?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Well, something had to happen! What did that man tell you?”

 

“Yuri,” Otabek says and there’s something there like emotionless hostility that throws Yuri off completely. “Drop it.”

 

Yuri takes a step back feeling like he’s somehow lost Otabek completely, like this man in front of him isn’t the same one he’s known almost all of his life. 

 

“Fuck you,” Yuri says, not caring that Otabek flinches at the harsh anger in his voice, not caring that he’s once again turned his back away from him. “Fuck you, Otabek.” Yuri turns on his heel and walks away down the hall to his room. Later he pretends that he didn’t turn around as he walked away but the truth is that he did. It must have been a moment of weakness but before the elevator door dings open to allow him entry he turns to find Otabek still in the hall, forehead pressed against the dark wood of the door. Yuri doesn’t see him again for the rest of that night and the next day he learns that Otabek has left the hotel and gone back home. He doesn’t ask him why. 


	2. Chapter 2

On Saturdays Yuri Plisetsky will wake up early and take the subway to Otabek’s place across the city. On Saturdays Yuri helps Otabek prepare dinner while they listen to music and drink too much and watch movies that they don’t pay much attention to, too giddy and starry eyed to focus on something so trivial. On Saturdays Yuri will sometimes sit outside on the fire escape with Otabek, listening to the noises the city makes and watching for the stars that decide to shine through the smog. 

A week passes almost without notice but Yuri counts the days. On Friday he can’t seem to be able to sleep. He tosses and turns so much that the sheets come right off the mattress as if in protest and his blanket becomes tangled around his feet like hands would in a nightmare, pulling him down and down and down into something he can’t claw his way out of. On Saturday he wakes up earlier than usual with his heart in his throat and a bead of sweat trailing down his temple, to the edge of his jaw, before falling and disappearing into the fabric of his t-shirt. He had dreamt about something but it must not have been very important because as soon as his eyes focus on the stark whiteness of his ceiling it disappears like smoke in the wind and he can no longer remember any of it. In the shower he runs the water as cold as he can and as he stands there shivering under the harsh spray he wonders just where the hell everything went so wrong. 

A week of barely any contact with Otabek can do a lot of things to a man. Yuri feels deprived but not all that angry anymore. He wonders if he was ever even angry in the first place. He’s more worried now after a week of stewing in his thoughts, aching to see Otabek and return to the normalcy that they had shared for so long but the distance makes it almost impossible to accomplish. So Yuri waits and he waits and he waits. That Saturday he decides he won’t wait any longer.

That morning feels, almost as if it were a cosmic joke of some sort, like every other Saturday morning.The sun is out and shining brightly, people are bustling about on the streets, going about their daily lives without a care in the world, and the subway is packed just the same. For a moment, if Yuri closes his eyes and loses himself in the monotony of everyday city life, in the mumble of conversations and the music blasting from someone’s speakers and the clutter and mess, it’s easy to pretend that it is like every other weekend he’s spent with Otabek. He can pretend that the banquet never happened- or it did except in Yuri’s mind it ends differently without the man, without the fight outside Otabek’s room, without the explosive helplessness disguised as anger. In Yuri’s mind they have fun and they dance and they’re happy like they would have been any other time. At the end of the night they go back to his room and they fall asleep together like it should have been since the beginning.

He doesn’t stop for a moment to think that maybe Otabek doesn’t want to see him. It isn’t something that has ever crossed Yuri’s mind nor would it have ever if it hadn’t been for that day. 

Yuri knows the way to Otabek’s apartment like he knows the way to his own, knows how many steps it takes to get from the subway to the building, knows how many flights of stairs up to the fourth floor and knows to knock three times in precise beats so Otabek knows it’s him and not just some stranger. Yuri knows that the number three on Otabek’s door is crooked and has been ever since he moved there and he knows that sometimes the mailman gets confused and puts Otabek’s mail in the wrong box. He knows that in the winter the heater always coughs and makes weird noises and he knows that in the summer the air conditioner sometimes fails and it takes the repair man an absurd amount of time to fix it so that’s why Otabek has so many fans all around the place. 

Otabek doesn’t look like Otabek that day. Seeing him is like a sudden jolt of electricity that sends Yuri back to what is instead of what could have been and the truth of the matter is that Otabek can’t even meet his eyes, can’t even look at him with the sincerity that has always been there for as long as Yuri has known him. Yuri pretends, still, that everything is fine and shoulders his way into the apartment, side stepping Otabek and falling onto the worn old couch. He sinks into it like he knew he would, and his head falls back against the cushions. Otabek is still standing by the open doorway, face cold and solemn. Yuri notices the heavy, dark bags under his eyes, the way his lips stay on a straight, thin line and the way he keeps fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt like he’s anxious. 

“Are you sick?” 

He has gone pale and sickly looking since the last time Yuri saw him, cheeks almost gaunt like he hadn’t been eating properly, if at all. His clothes hang loose on his frame. He looked exhausted, almost like a skeleton or a ghost. 

If Yuri were to look around at that moment, take a minute to analyze the room he has grown to know so well over the years, he might have noticed the empty cardboard boxes that littered every available surface. He might have noticed the disarray, what could possibly be classified as the destruction of a life and the rebirth of another, more chaotic one. Yuri doesn’t notice any of this and he won’t for a long while because all he can focus on is Otabek or that which used to be Otabek but now looks like nothing more than a stranger to him. 

Otabek shakes his head and then quietly asks, “what are you doing here?”

Those words hurt more than they should have but Yuri pretends that there’s no ache between his ribs when he hears them. “It’s Saturday,” he tells him as if that’s supposed to mean anything. To Yuri it is everything, always had been everything and he feels stupid thinking that maybe it hadn’t been the same for Otabek all along. “We always spend Saturdays together.” 

Otabek rubs at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger as a sigh escapes his lips. Yuri isn’t stupid, he knows when he’s not wanted, knows when he’s being a bother and that day it feels like that’s the only thing he is to Otabek: an annoyance, a headache waiting to happen at any minute now. Yuri watches the quiet up and down bob of his throat, watches the way his shoulders sit so stiff as if he can’t even bring himself to relax around him all the while trying to ignore that unrecognizable feeling bubbling up in his chest, ready to burst at any moment and he’s not sure exactly what would happen if it did. It must be something terrible because he tries almost desperately to stop it from doing so.

“It’s been a week. A whole goddamn week, Otabek,” he says instead of whatever other thing was right on the tip of his tongue. It’s something harsh, awful that goes down like razor blades in his throat.

“I know,” Otabek says, “but it’s just not a good time right now.”

“When, then?”

But when doesn’t have a definite answer. There is a totality there, something almost inevitable about the way Yuri watches everything change like twisted steel in a car crash he can’t look away from. He tries to look past the missed phone calls and ignored texts. He tries to ignore the not now’s and the maybe later’s but they hurt more than they should. He tries because it’s the only damn thing he knows how to do.

He places his hand softly on Otabek’s cheek, urges him on and away from whatever it is that gathers in his mind like storm clouds but Otabek won’t give in, no matter how much he wants to, no matter how many times his eyelashes flutter or how many times he sighs, leaning ever so slightly into Yuri’s touch like he wants it so desperately it hurts him to not take it. He always pulls away, anyway. Yuri asks him if he wants to watch his favorite movie and though he doesn’t outright say no the way he says “you hate that movie,” is answer enough. 

And then he’s gone. He was like wisps of smoke, slowly, slowly disappearing and Yuri never noticed a thing until it was too late and he was already gone. The apartment is empty save for the dust bunnies in the corner and the tacky curtains that must not have held as much priority as everything else. There’s no forwarding address, no warning text or call. For some reason Yuri feels like he should have expected this, like he should have seen it coming from miles away but the way his lungs feel so suddenly void of air, his chest so tight he feels like it will collapse in on itself, is wholly unexpected. 

He tries calling Otabek one more time. It goes right to voicemail and that time Yuri can’t figure out a single thing to say.


	3. Chapter 3

Otabek doesn’t show up for practice and Yuri seems to be the only one who notices, or for that matter, the only one who cares. Everything goes on like it does everyday: he still eats lunch with Mila and Yakov still scolds him for not getting his jumps just right but it feels like he’s stuck, unable to look past the glaring hole in a formation that’s threatening to collapse at any moment, crumbling piece by piece.

 

The first time he puts on his skates after the banquet his legs shake like a newborn foal, like he had never before been on ice a day in his life. None of it feels right, not the way Yakov seems to be paying special attention to him, not the way everyone else looks like they want to ask something they can’t possibly put into words. He’s only halfway through the day when he realizes he doesn’t want to be there which is strange all on it’s own because to Yuri, practice is sacred. The ice is where he creates himself, his routines. Without Otabek there, though, watching him, criticizing his footwork, and complimenting his routine it’s just not the same.

There’s a funny little feeling gathering itself deep in the pit of his stomach. Something that’s knotting itself so tight and so big he feels like it will kill him. He feels the sudden urge to rush off to Otabek’s apartment and curl up in the rough carpet that still smells like him, stay there until Otabek comes back to him and tells him he’s sorry, that he’ll never do anything like that again. But it’s useless. The landlord changed the locks already and Yuri’s key no longer fits. 

 

He feels utterly pathetic.

 

This season Yakov is pushing him for gold. It goes mostly unsaid but without Otabek there there isn’t much competition to go up against. So Yakov pushes and Yuri goes. It’s foolish of him because he knows that he shouldn’t place all of his worth simply on Otabek’s words and presence, knows that he’s worth something on his own, by his own right and skill but his thoughts gather in his head, festering like something rotten that won’t leave him be. 

 

He bruises so easily. When he gets home he spends an hour standing in front of the mirror, the shower going in the background as the steam seeps out from above the curtain. His thighs and ass are a muddled mess of blacks and blues from too many clumsy falls, a scab forming on his elbow from when a particularly nasty fall had split the skin and drawn blood, too bright against the ice as it dripped down. He didn’t want to feel like a disappointment, didn’t want Yakov’s permanently disatisfied expression imprinted in the back of his eyelids so that even in the dark he couldn’t escape it. 

 

So Yuri stays up one night, way past what he knows is smart despite the fact that he’s got early training the next day and he makes a list, pen digging into the yellow notepad paper and ripping it in some places. His handwriting is as messy as he feels. Gold or Otabek. Otabek or gold.

 

Some truths are harder to come by than others.  

 

His calls go straight to voicemail, again and again and again. He doesn’t know why he tries anymore, is only hurting himself in the process but it’s hard to think about Otabek being gone, about him just disappearing. The thought of never getting to hear his voice again keeps Yuri up at night, tossing and turning. He’s sleepless, with dark circles under his eyes and a sour expression that won’t disappear. Yakov seems to notice because while Yuri is on the rink he isn’t given much time to think about it. It’s only when he’s alone at home that his thoughts wander, adding to the aches and pains.

 

It’s a wednesday when he stays behind in the locker rooms, sitting on a bench and waiting patiently for it to clear out. The sounds of chatter and laughter dim until there’s nothing but silence. Then, it’s just him. He keeps scrolling through all his unanswered messages, wondering if Otabek had even bothered to read them. Did he know how much Yuri thought about him, how much he needed him? Maybe Otabek had changed his number, eager to sever all contact with Yuri. The thought makes the already tight knot in his stomach tighten even further. 

 

But maybe it had been him. Maybe he had been the one to push Otabek away, so quick to anger over the smallest of things. Did he even have a right to be angry over this? 

 

Even with all those terrible things in his head Yuri still opens Otabek’s contact, thumb hovering over the call button. He feels like he did that time as a child, when he had lost his footing and tumbled down the bank and into the frigid, murky water of the river. He feels cold only for a split second before the numbness takes over, his chest tight. His fingers claw at the water, trying to find a way back out to the quickly fading sunlight. 

He sighs and is about to put his phone away and go home when it starts ringing, the sudden loudness of his ringtone startling, bouncing off the walls of the locker room. He yelps, phone almost slipping from his grip. Otabek’s name and picture show up on the screen. It’s a picture he’d taken when they’d gone to a cafe in moscow together, steaming cup of tea sitting in front of him as he looks out of the window, chin cupped in the palm of his hand. It’s nothing but a hazy memory now after some years but he still remembers Otabek on that day, how long his hair was, how he kept pushing it back and away from his eyes, how their hands had brushed as they walked side by side. 

 

Yuri quickly answers the call before it can drop and brings it up to his ear, holding his breath as he waits. 

 

“Yura.” It’s almost a sigh, quiet as a falling feather. Yuri feels like years have passed since he heard Otabek’s voice. “Are you there?”

 

Yuri realizes he hasn’t said a single word, is hardly breathing as is. “I’m here,” he says. “Where the hell have you been?” There it is again, that anger. It’s hard to understand it sometimes, the way it just manifests out of the blue. 

 

“That’s… not a simple answer,” Otabek says. 

 

“Practice started.”

 

“I know.” There’s a sound in the background, something that reminds Yuri of restless pacing. “I’m taking a leave from skating. I wanted you to be the first one to know.”

 

Yuri falls silent. “What?” But he doesn’t need Otabek to repeat himself. He heard him loud and clear, his words still echoing around in Yuri’s head. “Are you fucking crazy?”

 

“Yuri-”

 

“It’s mid-season,” Yuri says, standing from the bench. He can no longer stand to sit still. “You can’t quit now. You’re not that stupid.” 

 

Otabek sighs. Yuri hears it loud and clear as if he had been right there next to him, a soft exhalation against his ear. “I’ve thought about this a lot and I knew you would react like this but it’s a personal decision, Yura. Please, don’t be angry.” 

 

“Clearly you haven’t thought about this enough,” Yuri counters, “Or else you wouldn’t be doing something so stupid!”

 

Otabek’s answers after that are short and clipped; emotionless. It’s like he doesn’t want to have this conversation but neither of them dare hang up yet. Yuri fears that if he ends the call he won’t ever hear from him again. 

 

“You can’t do this,” he tries, as if somehow he’ll be able to talk Otabek out of it.

 

“I’ve already made up my mind.”

 

Yuri huffs and with anger clear in his voice says, “Fine. Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

 

Otabek is quiet for so long Yuri thinks the call might have dropped but when he looks at the screen he sees that it’s still going, seconds ticking away like nothing. He’s spent so much time in there already. He’s sure if he were to walk outside now he’d find that night had fallen without him even noticing.

 

Eventually Otabek says, “Please don’t hate me.” His voice is so quiet and breaks halfway through the sentence in a way that makes something deep in Yuri’s chest ache unbearably. “I won’t be able to get through this if you hate me.”

 

“Then don’t,” Yuri says, holding the phone close to his ear with two hands. “Just come back.” Come back to me.

 

“Do you think I want this?” Otabek’s voice is almost like a harsh whisper as he says it. “This… it’s out of my control.”

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Yuri asks, frown taking over his face. He’s trying to understand but Otabek is talking in circles. 

 

Otabek hesitates for a long time. Yuri can just imagine his face in that moment; the way his eyebrows furrow, the way he bites his lip. It’s that look that always lets Yuri know when he’s thinking hard about something.

 

“I’m not just taking a leave from skating, Yura. I wish it was as simple as that but it’s not. I’m leaving everything behind. I’m leaving you.”

 

“What?” 

 

He hears Otabek take a deep breath. “I’m moving away. I have to and once I do we can’t talk anymore. I can’t leave knowing you’re angry with me. I couldn’t live with that.”

 

Yuri’s throat is dry, a million thoughts running around in his head. Otabek leaving, not being able to talk to him anymore, not being able to see him. He feels dizzy with the thought of it, vision swimming.

 

“Is it because of me?” He can’t help it as the words spill from his mouth. Was it because he was too angry, too young, too rash with his actions and words? Was he too clingy? Was Otabek tired of him already? He could list all of his flaws for hours but he still thinks none of it would be enough. “I’m sorry for yelling at you if that’s what this is about.” Quietly, in a whisper, he adds, “please don’t do this.”

 

“It’s out of my control,” Otabek says and if Yuri didn’t know him as well as he did he wouldn’t have been able to tell how tense he was. Even on the other end of the phone, even wherever he is- maybe a few blocks, a few cities, a few countries away- he could tell the smallest things about him from his voice, the harsh way he was breathing. He could just imagine him pacing where he was, anxiously burning a hole right into the floor. It’s just like how it’d be before a performance, the nervous pacing, the nail-biting; or when he was thinking too hard about a move he couldn’t get right. Yuri remembers perfectly how to calm him; a hand on his arm, a soft Otabek, the hand that combed through his dark hair even softer. “I can’t explain it but… Yuri, I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

 

Yuri takes in a sharp breath through his teeth. The way Otabek says it- he can hear the fear in his voice this time, that small telltale sign slipping through. They’re not talking about just skating anymore, or Yuri’s outburst. This is more, this is bigger, just like that day at the banquet when he’d seen the terror taking over his face as the man spoke to him. Yuri has the feeling that this has something to do with that night and it can’t possibly be anything good. Maybe, just maybe, it really was a matter of safety.

 

“Tell me.” Yuri, ever the stubborn one even when he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know the answer anymore. “Are you in danger? I need to know.” 

 

“I can’t. I can’t, Yuri. Please understand. It’s better this way.”

 

“How?!” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice but it just happened. His voice echoed; _how_ how how. “How is not seeing you better? Tell me or- or I’ll fucking hate you forever if you don’t.” He wouldn’t, not really. He’s like a child, spewing the first things that come to mind, not thinking about the consequences. He can just imagine the look on Otabek’s face and it hurts. 

 

“Where are you now?” 

 

“The locker room,” Yuri says, looking around. He had forgotten about it. For a moment he had been nowhere, stuck somewhere between Otabek’s voice and the sudden realization that maybe he didn’t really know his best friend at all. 

 

Otabek sighs. “Listen, I can’t talk about it over the phone. Can we meet somewhere? It’s best if I explain it in person.”

 

Yuri feels like he’s just won a contest. He feels like cheering, like letting out  a mighty whoop of victory. “Of course.” 

 

After Otabek hangs up Yuri stays there for a long time, quiet and still. It’s so quiet he thinks he can hear his heart beating, a thum-thum-thum that fills the spaces between the lockers and himself. He’s going to see Otabek soon, maybe understand what was going on. He was scared for it, scared of the unknown, scared of Otabek leaving, scared of all the things that will go unsaid when he does. 


	4. Chapter 4

_ The click of the camera is a far off sound. Otabek registers it as the sound he would hear from the TV playing in the living room, maybe from a movie or that show his mom likes. He hears it with his ear pressed to the door, quiet so his parents don’t know he’s up past his bedtime. Over the creaking of the swing set as he swings slowly back and forth it’s almost imperceptible. But he hears it and it doesn’t take him long to find the source.  _

 

_ The man is standing at the edge of the playground, almost a shadow save for the soft, fading light that falls over his face. His eyes are dark and unsettling. Clasped in his hands is a camera, lense pointed at Otabek. When their eyes meet his smile is a red gash across his face, like someone has cut him from ear to ear with a knife.  _

 

_ Otabek stops swinging, The fear that takes over him is sudden and fierce; it’s a metallic taste in the back of his mouth that reminds him of blood. He can’t take his eyes off the man, can’t blink, or else he’s scared the man will get closer to him. If he takes one step closer he’ll scream, his fear is so great. The worst part about it is that the man doesn’t look at all particularly threatening. He looks normal, like any other man Otabek might see around his neighborhood, walking his dog, or while on his way to school early in the morning, picking up the newspaper from the driveway. _

 

_ The man doesn’t move from his spot. Otabek can’t tell if he’s relieved or not. A cold wind picks its way through the playground and his mother’s voice pops into his mind:  _ You should have taken a jacket _. The t-shirt he had worn instead isn’t enough to cover him both from the wind and the man’s gaze. _

 

_ He stands from the swingset and doesn’t realize how badly his legs are shaking until he does. He couldn’t run if he wanted to but he felt like he so badly needed to. He needed to get away as quickly as possible. He turns and can feel the man’s gaze making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He can feel him as he makes his way through the playground all the way up until he turns the corner. He holds his hands to his stomach, feeling it knotting up tight. The nausea is as sudden and fierce as the fear; or it  _ is _ the fear, manifesting itself in whatever way will make Otabek the most miserable.  _

 

_ Even when he’s climbing the three steps up to the porch and stepping through the door he doesn’t feel safe. If he turns around he’ll see the man there, stepping into his house after him.  _

 

_ His mother is in the kitchen. She hears him come in but doesn’t look up from the dinner she’s cooking. She asks him if he’s okay, if it had been as cold as she had told him it’d be. He barely hears her, barely registers the words she’s saying. It all sounds muffled over the harsh thudding of his heart. He says something that he thinks must be a simple  _ yeah _ before making his way up the stairs, taking two at a time. He feels like a zombie, going through the motions without really registering them. _

 

_ He doesn’t eat dinner that night and the next morning when it’s time to go to school he tells his mother he can’t go. He’s sick, can barely stomach the breakfast she makes him without feeling like he’s going to vomit. His mother gives him the mom smile, that  _ my-baby-is-sick-and-I’m-worried-but-I-don’t-want-to-show-it  _ smile. She pushes his hair back and kisses his forehead. _

 

_ “It’s okay,” she tells him, “just rest.” _

  
  


“Otabek.”

 

Otabek’s head snaps up at the sound of Yuri’s voice, coming back from where ever it is that he had been before then. Yuri stops a distance away from him, not quite sure how to proceed, if he should move forward or stay where he is. Otabek looks like a painting, so still, his features nothing but a gentle afterthought and perfect brushstrokes. Ophelia in the water, expertly remade into Otabek on the swingset. 

 

Otabek offers a smile when he sees Yuri but it’s not as genuine as he had hoped it would be. His mind is still so far away, somewhere Yuri could never hope to reach. Yuri walks forward and sits on the swing next to Otabek’s, digging the toe of his shoe into the mulch. The playground is quiet that day, all the kids at school or wherever it is they’re supposed to be. It’s just them, two adults on the swingset, waiting for something, anything to happen.  

 

Yuri watches Otabek, outlined in the hazy grey of a dreary day. His face is different. He looks like he’s aged ten years, maybe twenty, since the last time they had seen each other. How long was that now? It feels like a lifetime. There’s a frown on his face as he struggles to get his thoughts together, trying to figure out how to say he needs to. He wants to be honest with Yuri, he thinks he deserves that much, but he doesn’t want to scare him away.

 

Yuri is patient as he waits. A million questions run around in his head but he stays quiet, giving Otabek the time that he needs. He wants to know what’s going on but most of all he wants to reach out, put his hand over Otabek’s and reassure him that everything will be okay even if he doesn’t really believe that himself. He wants to comfort him in any way that he can.

 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Otabek says and then, “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.” Yuri tries to keep up with what he’s saying but he’s rambling, going on and on about apologies and forgiveness and selfishness. He doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing, too caught up in what he’s trying to say to really notice that he’s not making any sense at all.

 

“Beka,” Yuri says quietly, fearing someone will hear him even though there’s no one around. Otabek stops talking and looks at him, waiting for him to speak. “Is it the Kazakhstani mob?” It’s something he’s been sitting on for a while. Otabek’s fear would be easy to explain, then, and why he has to pick up and leave so suddenly. If Otabek had run around with the wrong crowd in an earlier life, Yuri wouldn’t judge him for that.

 

“What?” Otabek says. He looks at Yuri with his eyes wide. “Yuri, that’s not a thing.”

 

“Oh,” Yuri says. He looks away, suddenly embarrassed. He’s sure his face is burning red from the tips of his ears all the way down his neck. He feels stupid.

 

“Listen,” Otabek says, touching his arm for the briefest of moments to get his attention, “this is important and it’s dangerous.” By the sound of his voice Yuri can tell that he’s serious. A shiver runs down his spine. “And I shouldn’t-” he frowns again before looking at Yuri, eyes like he had never seen them before. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this in the first place but- but I’m selfish and I would rather tell you now than have you hate me later. I think you at least deserve an explanation” And then he starts rambling again, almost entirely lost to the senselessness. Yuri can tell he’s frustrated and overwhelmed, thoughts running around in his head out of order. Yuri knows him well enough by now.

 

He gets up from the swing and moves slowly to stand in front of Otabek. He suddenly looks so small, so defeated like the weight of all the things he’s been holding in for so long are finally pulling him down . It’s like it’s suffocating him. Yuri wants desperately to ease the tension. He cups Otabek’s face in his hands, moving slowly to give Otabek time to move away if he wants. He doesn’t. Instead he leans in to the touch, eyes fluttering shut and he grows quiet. Yuri’s breaths come in shaky, his heart fluttering in his chest and jumpstarting into an unsteady rhythm. Otabek isn’t pushing him away like he had last time and to Yuri that’s something of a victory.

 

“Stop talking,” he says quietly, “and just take a deep breath.” Otabek does and when he opens his eyes they don’t seem so wild anymore. “There you go,” he says, thumbs brushing over Otabek’s cheekbones in what he hopes is a comforting gesture.

 

“Yura-”

 

“You’re fine,” Yuri says though he’s not really sure if either of them believe it. Nothing about this feels  _ fine _ . He smiles softly. “It’s funny.”

 

Otabek frowns. “What is?”

 

“This,” he says but when the confused look remains on Otabek’s face he elaborates, “usually it’s you trying to calm me down. I like the change.”  _ I like doing this for you, even if it doesn’t seem like much. _

 

“Your fingers are cold,” Otabek says instead. 

 

Yuri shrugs. “It’s fine but- I’ve never seen you like this. What the hell has you so scared?” 

 

Otabek flinches, as if he’s been slapped but he doesn’t move away from Yuri. Rather he places a hand over Yuri’s on his cheek and leans further into it. Yuri gives him a moment of taking deep breaths before he says, “When I was a young I was kidnapped by a very sick man.” His eyes are closed as he says it, like he doesn’t want to see Yuri’s reaction to his words. ”I wasn’t the only one. Before me-” He chokes up a bit and Yuri can feel the way his hand shakes against his. “I don’t know if you remember at all, or if the news even made it all the way over there but kids started disappearing in the span of a few years. I was one of them.”

  
  


_ He remembers it in bits and pieces. Most of it is black bleeding into red, the ugly gash of a wicked smile, bold headlines of a newspaper. Otabek can divide his entire life into two parts;  the before and the after. The before, when his mother would hold his hand tight as they crossed the street and she would tuck him in at night and place a kiss on his forehead. She didn’t worry as much because they weren’t the kinds of people things like this happened to. The after, where Otabek is still busy picking up the pieces, or what remains of whoever it was he had been before.   _

 

_ So many years had passed some of the details had become blurred together. He’d spent nearly a lifetime trying to block the memories but it wasn’t something he could just shake off and forget about because he wanted to. He couldn’t run away from it. This would be with him for the rest of his life. _

 

_ He remembers his escape, stumbling out of that house on bruised legs. The light had hurt his eyes. He had wanted to run, to get as far away from there as possible but he couldn’t see. It was all so horribly bright, like someone had taken a rope and tugged the sun impossibly closer to the earth in the time that he was gone- and how long had that been? He couldn’t be sure. He felt grimy and used and disgusting but he had not felt himself change physically. It had been a few months, at most. His mind drifts to his mother, the worried look that sometimes materialized in her face. Is that what she would look like when she saw him again? He had lost some weight, in that time. He could feel his ribs, could see them protruding whenever he looked at himself without a shirt on. His cheeks had sunken in and there were dark bags under his eyes as if he no longer knew what sleep was.  _

 

_ He doesn’t remember how he’d ended up in the hospital. Maybe someone had seen him walking around aimlessly and called the paramedics. Maybe someone had picked him up off the street and taken him there directly. No one ever really told him this part of the story and he had never asked. It just wasn’t relevant to him when there were other things to worry about.  _

 

_ People had sent flowers and  _ get well soon! _ Balloons to his room, to  _ him _ , this strange child that no one really knew but had been through so much and had somehow managed to escape. For some time after he would think about the other parents, the ones whose kids weren’t as lucky as he was. He imagines them sitting in their grief, in dark living rooms, staring at the TV, at his picture, with resentment and hatred in their eyes. His mother cried a lot during that time, mostly out of relief but also something else. Everything had changed for both of them. She’d held his hand tightly and kept saying, “it’s okay. Everything is okay now.” Otabek had missed her so much. _

 

_ He’d told the police everything. He’d felt some sort of sick satisfaction at this, like finally he could start to get back at the man for everything he had done to him. It wasn’t enough, though, none of it would ever be enough. They never catch him but at least no more kids go missing from then on.  _

 

_ It’s the little things. _

 

_ He was scared for a long time after and no matter how many therapists he saw or how many pills they prescribed it would be a while before he eventually managed to push everything to the back of his mind and move on. He convinced himself that the man had died or he’d been arrested for some totally unrelated crime and was off rotting in jail somewhere. He knew his life would never be the same, after, but at least he could convince himself that he was safe. _

  
  


“The man,” Yuri says, a worried look on his face. He seems to be reading Otabek’s thoughts so clearly. “He’s back, isn’t he?”

 

Otabek nods. “I need to be out of the spotlight for a while, at least until I know I’m safe again. I’m catching a flight tomorrow. I need to be away from here. I need to disappear.”

 

Yuri feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes but he blinks them away quickly before they can fall. After everything that’s been said he doesn’t want Otabek to see him cry. He needs to be strong for him. He deserves that much. “Will I ever see you again?” 

 

Otabek meets his eyes. “I sure hope so,” he says and gives an attempt at a smile though it’s tight and strained. 

 

Yuri isn’t sure what to say, after that. There are too many things to think about but he can’t seem to get anything straight in his head, all those things rushing around and around he can barely concentrate. Otabek would be leaving tomorrow. Yuri isn’t as upset as he would have been now that he knows the truth. He understands. Yuri could let him go and still cling to the hope that they would see each other again one day. As long as Otabek was safe it was okay. 

 

He sighs as Otabek runs his hands down his sides, catching at his hips and tugging him closer to him. The swing sways slightly with the movement and Yuri feels himself go with it.

 

“I’m such an idiot,” Otabek says quietly, eyes caught in the hollow of Yuri’s throat, exposed by the loose collar of his shirt. “Why the hell did I wait so long? Now it’s all ruined.” 

 

“Wait so long for what?” Yuri asks, tilting Otabek’s face up so that he’s looking at him. He wants to look at his eyes, anticipation coiling tight in his gut. 

 

“Yura. You know.” He says it with just the barest tug of a smile, his eyes hooded and hazy as he looks at Yuri. There is a pink tint forming at the tips of his ears, crawling down to his cheeks. It’s part embarrassment, part something more.

 

_ I know you know. I know you know what I know.  _

 

Yuri closes his eyes for the briefest of moments, trying to ignore the sudden unsteadiness that he feels. If it weren’t for Otabek’s hands on his hips his legs would have surely given up on him. He swallows and then opens his eyes again. They’re so close, their noses just barely brushing. If Yuri were to move any closer he could-

 

“Say it anyway,” he pleads.  

 

Otabek leans their foreheads together and very quietly says, “I love you. I have loved you maybe from the very beginning.” Yuri had known what was coming but he still felt unprepared to actually hear it. Otabek says it in the sweetest way imaginable. Yuri wishes he could bottle the sound of his voice in that moment and keep it forever. “I spent so long being afraid. I didn’t want to face the truth because that meant complications.” His voice catches at the end of the sentence and he pulls away from Yuri just enough put his head in his hands. “I’m so stupid.” 

 

“Hey. Hey, it wasn’t a waste,” Yuri says quietly, gathering Otabek in his arms and pulling him close. “And you aren’t stupid. We’re together now, aren’t we? It’s not over yet.” Yuri is aware of every little movement in that moment, all if it made painfully clear. He can hear the breath of fabric rubbing against fabric as they move, the creak of a rusty chain, Otabek’s shaky breathing. “When do you leave?”

 

“Tomorrow,” Otabek says, looking up at him. “Early.”

 

Yuri hates to think about it so he doesn’t. He shoves the thought of Otabek leaving to the very back of his mind and hopes to keep it there for however long he can. He leans forward, places a kiss at the corner of Otabek’s mouth just because he can and then takes a deep breath before saying, “Then we have one more night.”

 

Otabek is looking up at him with his eyes so wide, sincere, and trusting. He’s so bright; Yuri can still see him in Barcelona that first time, surrounded by bright golden light in the same clarity that he could see him there, sitting on that swing set, finally so close. 

  
“Please,” Yuri says, “can I kiss you?” He almost said it again.  _ Please,  _ with the same sort of begging edge to his voice as before. But there’s no need to. Otabek is already cupping his face, already leaning toward him. They meet for that first time somewhere in the middle. Or maybe Yuri stays perfectly still, waiting for Otabek. He doesn’t know much of anything. He’s left his body, feels himself floating, lighter than air , and all there is for a long while is the warm press of Otabek’s lips on his, parting sweetly, asking for more. “I love you too,” he says in a gasp, palm running across the cropped sides of Otabek’s hair. “We can make up for lost time. I love you,” he says again and doesn’t think he could ever get tired of saying it. “Let me show you how much.” 


End file.
